Good to start a thread for Denver Tiki events and Denver Tiki in General. My wife and I are diligently working on our outdoor Tiki Bar and hope to host a Denver Ohana event sometime in late may or early June (after we recover from Oasis 6). Will keep everyone posted as soon as we nail down a date.

Speaking of Oasis 6 this could be a good thread to thereby figger out who from Denver is going to make it to San Diego.

I have seen on the Tiki at Target thread, some pretty cool and affordable resin Tikis that are definitely on par with the Big Lost ones. I have been to the Super Target on Colorado and Alameda and there were no Tikis at all. There is however the Mai Tiki gazebo,$250. which is freakin' awesome. Also, If anyone is interested, they do indeed have the full on Tiki Bar w/ stools also cheap, plus a pretty cool resin bamboo water fountain.

If anyone discovers the Tiki statues at their local Target, PLEASE post it.

The Super Target at Aurora City Place doesn't have the statues either. At least from what I've seen and I viewed their Tiki display right after they set it up. Pretty nice, actually, but the only Tiki-esque statuary, per se, are the bamboo fountains. Unless they've introduced something new into the display in the last couple of days, which was the last time I was there.

Miss Amy gave me the night off Saturday night.....one more before the baby arrives.
So I rounded up about eight car freaks and were went out and bombed the town in tire smoke and V-8 exhaust noise.
But we did are best to represent the tiki life..we started at Swing-Thai on 44th and Tennyson...they aren't really tiki but they have some great tiki style drinks. Thai-tanic is a green pineapple, Vodka and sweet and sour mix that just rocks!
We worked our way through highlands, down Speer and onto Broadway....the whole time picking up speed and volume. The three gear burnout by my buddy Brian Hardman (Pikes peak hillclimb racer) in his 68' Ford Fairlane was truly beautiful.
Filled the whole intersection of Alameda and Bd-way with a wonderful blue smoke.
Everybody landed at the Twin Dragon again and they were happy as hell to see us. I think they are quite pleased by the new interest and business. Thanks again Zulu.
We all indulged in more Zombies and Mai Tais, and then hung around drinking water and juice until everybody felt normal again.
Then it was off to Lincoln's Roadhouse to see Ethel and the Regulars where we finished the night. Great band. Jeff Yeary rules!
All in all we had 7 cars; My 64' Galaxie, a 50' Ford Coupe, a 39' Ford Sedan, a 66' Cadillac Convert, a '68 Fairlane, a Blown 52' Ford Coupe, and a beautiful 2000 Cadillac DHS my buddy Tony out of Wyoming just bought.

But the reason I'm tellin you all this is that we want to do it again...everybody had a great time. We are hoping that after my new baby girl arrives and things settle down we can storm the town. Maybe June or July.
But this will be an open invite to anyone who wants to go. The only requirement is that you bring a car and it's an American make. The bigger and longer the better.
Let me know and I will get in contact before it happens.
Thanks, Mr. Dale

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"Somedays I'm an Artist. Other days I'm just a poo flinging monkey"

Who is going to Oasis 6? It would be cool it we could find a way to meet up there. Suggestions? Time? Place? By the pool ( drink in hand ) ? After kau kau? What day / night? Let's make a showing for Denver!

Went to Cost Plus (also known as World Market) today and discovered that the price for tiki torch oil is skyrocketing.

The display featured two different shaped bottles, apparently filled with the exact same oil in the same quantity (64 oz.). The teardrop shaped bottle (the same style bottle they've been featuring for the past couple years) is priced at $3.99. The newer, more rectangular shaped bottle, is priced at $6.99. I tried to inspect both bottles carefully and couldn't discern any difference in either product. Both are World Market products. My advice is to stock up now before the old bottles are gone.

The Cost Plus I purchased my $3.99 bottle is on Mississippi, near I-225. I'm not sure how many Cost Plus/World Markets there are out there, so I thought I'd post on this thread first.

I was wondering if anyone from Denver wants to chime in on the impending opening of Hula's on Broadway. I don't want to be too prematurely skeptical, but the name of the joint raises some questions in my mind. For example, why would you name a place Hula's out on the myriad endless possibilities of cool names for a Tiki / Poly Pop establishment.Single word possessive names for bars and restaurants are out like a friggin' leg warmer. Something about this is just a little too close to Chili's for comfort. Kind of corporate not unlike TGI Friday's or Shennagin's for crissakes. I really hope that this concept doesn't try to dumb down Tiki in any way. The Idea of selling Tiki to the lowest common denominator is a troubling proposition that could very well start with a clueless staff and end in banality.

To their credit, the Hula's web site does have some nice musical tidbits that show that someone did their homework, and the interior shots of the Monterey location are not half bad. The lighting scheme seems awfully bright for my tastes but that could be a concession made for the sake of photography.

I guess only time will tell with this one, however, if my suspicions are correct, there will be at least a Tiki bar where Dave Flomberg feels comfortable in his 80's aloha shirt, listening to Jimmy Buffet with a teriyaki cheese burger in paradise.

Tiki Fink prefers the more authentic approach, so see ya at the new Tiki Boyd's or whatever they decide to call it.

I had very similar concerns before I visited the Monterey Hula's. Indeed, I believe that when they first opened years ago, their concept was a little more simple; geared a bit more to generic modern tropical Hawaii. Technically, the name isn't Hula's, it's Hula's Island Grill & Tiki Bar, but that's such a mouthful (and the extra words pretty much just state the obvious anyhow), that everyone just calls it Hula's.

After building the place (which is just a few blocks from Munktiki HQ, and you can get your drink served in a Munktiki mug), the owners got a bit more into vintage Polynesian Pop. They expanded the restaurant into a side room, which this time was decked out in true PolyPop fashion -- bamboo booths, lauhala matting, velvet paintings, and the biggest Tiki Tony carving I've ever seen. The Mai Tai I was served was an honest attempt at the Trader Vic's recipe -- no pineapple or grenadine -- and was very, very close. The main dining room area is still more simple (though it has a number of cool carved panels, which I think were done by Bosko), but that side room is awesome. When we ate there, we spoke with one of the owners, and he told us he was dying to go all-Poly-Pop at their next location.

In my opinion, the news of Hula's opening a location in your town is perhaps as good as if Trader Vic's was. It still has all the potential pitfalls of any new spot: who knows what the decor really will be, or the drinks, or the food -- but the decor & food in Monterey are way better than the modern-day Vic's I've been to, and the drinks are about on par with the average not-the-best-but-still-good Vic's bartender.

Thanks for the info. I really hope that they do indeed play up the Poly Pop aspect of the Denver location. I also hope that Hula's is as good for the bar fly as it is for it's dining aspects. For a city like ours to have a lacklustre re-introduction to Tiki would be a shame. I am old enough to remember many of the original Tiki establishments in Denver and my parents frequented them with delight.

Perhaps the last holdout in terms of a real original Exotica style bar here was a place called the Fuji En and I was able to enjoy that place up until 1998. Fuji En was kind of run down but it was still pretty spectacular and it had the kind of ambiance that was truly addictive. Fuji En fell to the hands of some tasteless iconoclasts who gutted it, discarded many beautiful hand crafted items in a construction dumpster and Re - named the place Dazzle.

I am really hoping that the new Tiki / Exotica places to fill the niche in Denver are wonderful in their own right.My bet is still on the new Boyd's in terms of concept,hospitality and overall ambiance.